


London Calling

by Roughnight



Series: You. Me. Everything Else Is Irrelevant. [2]
Category: Dead Space, Into Darkness, Mass Effect, Sherlock (TV), Star Trek
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossing Parallels, M/M, Time Travel, settling in
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-11
Updated: 2013-06-11
Packaged: 2017-12-14 16:24:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/838928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roughnight/pseuds/Roughnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>.<br/>It may prove to be a good decision on Khan’s part to keep the doctor around for a much longer time even when the latter was pretty much asking to be murdered.<br/>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	London Calling

**Author's Note:**

> .  
>  I do apologize that the information about John’s weird circumstances is still being withhold. Khan had to figure about it on his own and I’m afraid the whole truth would only unfold near the end of this fic. u_u  
> .

 

~*~*~

 

The first time Khan heard Dr. John Watson’s screams and whimpers was when they had arrived and camped on a nearby, habitable, yet barren planet. It was the most distant their escape pod’s oxygen supply had the capacity of supporting. The doctor has, as it seemed, been well prepared. It was yet another testimony among the piling data that told of his determination to secure Khan’s escape without fail. John had planned meticulously, for a long, long time. Sitting huddled around the bon fire they had created, Khan watched as the man thrashed and suffocated inside his snug, sleeping bag. He examined impassively as the doctor’s face reflected the gripping terror of his nightmare, sweat glistening on his pale forehead, pooling on his sandy brows. It was intriguing. The fear John Watson did not possess during their plight inside the USG Ishimura, not even when they had encountered a couple more of those vile necromorphs gnawing at the entrails of a still conscious and flailing man, it seemed to treacherously plague his mind and take advantage when his conscious thoughts resigned to slumber. Khan also wrestled with himself whether he ought to be offended that this man had the gall to sleep in his presence.  Did Watson trust his own that much to be able to intercept Khan’s assault during his sleep or had the man really thought Khan incapable of harming him? The lure of his crew’s location, where they were guarded and kept, has become bland now that Khan was pretty certain he could discover them on his own given the right amount of time and the proper directive.

 

He fiddled with the thoughts about what had to be done to John Watson, who, at the basest and most technical sense, was his benefactor. Not that it amounted much to anything, no. He wasn’t a human born from inferior genetics after all and was therefore not bound, in anyway, to be accountable to anything of lesser form. But he was yet to hear from the doctor’s mouth what he wanted from Khan in return. When John had recounted his story, he somehow failed to say it in words. The man acted as if it ought to be as clear as crystal what he desired out of this circumstance, acted as if he’d already conveyed what was necessary. If that was truly so, Khan rather thought it still eluded him. Khan imagined himself crawling towards the sleeping man, gliding as silent as a grave. He toyed with the idea of grabbing the blonde man’s face between his hands and taking advantage of the other’s presented vulnerability, crushing the bones with his sturdy palms. The muscles of his limbs had a spasm as the desires battled. A part of him was reluctant about the idea it seemed. It wouldn’t be wholly logical yet for that sort of action. It did not matter. Snuffing the man when needed would be easy enough some other time, crushingly so. It was a waste of opportunity though, seeing to it as an extra shuttle’s already prepared by the good doctor. Watson had parked it in this planet beforehand and anticipated the need for it during the escape. Khan’s eyes glinted in appraisal at the reminder. John Watson has calculated with most precision, indeed.

 

His mind and the synapses of his brain arriving at an agreement, he decided to recall the most perplexing information the doctor has shared with him haltingly during the course of their escape pod’s transit towards this planet. John, as it would appear, was ancient—much more ancient than Khan himself if the story was to be believed. The man was from the past, from a timeline when men were still dully Earth-bound, a world Khan could only imagine but never understand and see. John Watson is  classic.

 

“ _Sherlock_ ,” John has now whimpered pitifully, dragging Khan out of his reverie.

 

That name again. Watson has mentioned how he’d searched for years for the man of most importance to him, had endured the foreign paradigm of this universe, and had acclimated himself painstakingly for the sake of one man. As told by John Watson, he watched the man Sherlock jump off a building and it had been during the course of the fall, before the latter had kissed the ground that _It_ happened. There occurred the sudden flash of blinding light that occurred from midair and the ground beneath John melted and tore from under his feet before he’d been completely swallowed, before he could’ve even witnessed the conclusion of the detective’s fall.

 

Khan pursed his lips into an impatient line. He had an inkling feeling that the blonde doctor was still holding an innumerable amount of crucial information from him. The man did not lie flat on his face, that he could tell, but Khan was certain a lot of details were deliberately omitted. It was maddening and something told Khan how torture and coercion would not get anything from this seemingly ordinary man, the same one who had not batted an eyelid as he’d let loose the nightmarish abominations inside the Planetcracker vessel and sold the people for a genocide. No. It would need another form of effort from his part.

 

~*~*~

 

He was still awake when the other man’s eyes fluttered open, blue orbs reflecting the dance of the fire. A mere five hours had passed, by Khan’s estimation. The doctor had just begun ceasing from his fitful thrashings and whimpering; the torment has come and passed but it had definitely taken its time. John Watson now started to pull himself out from the bundle of his sleeping bag and sat down crossed legged, stretching his arms in the air and relieving the strain from his neck. Frankly, he did not look any better with his face still looking worn and his blue eyes being framed by heavy bags. His rumpled hair seemed decent though as it glinted golden with the crackling flame.

 

“You didn’t sleep,” John said casually as he leveled a look at him.

 

“I slept for far longer, doctor. You’d excuse me if sleep’s not something I’m fond of at present.”

 

The doctor gave a derisive snort. “I suppose.”

 

With renowned vigor Khan for the life of him couldn’t figure out to have come from where, Watson reached for a nearby bag they had fished from inside the parked shuttle and proceeded to fumble with the contents. He produced a couple of canned refreshments and threw one at Khan.

 

“What now?” Khan queried as he caught the tin with a hand.

 

“Now we’ll have breakfast,” the other man replied nonchalantly, ignoring the grave expression on Khan’s face.

 

“You promised.” Khan killed for less.

 

“I did,” John answered gently before he opened his can with a pop. He gave Khan a sideway glance, this time devoid of any pretense of humor to convey that he understood. “It didn’t mean I’d have to tell everything all at once, though. You acquire everything you want or need and you’d have left me or dispatched me, probably both and in the same order. I, at least, know that much.” He said in a beat, with barely a pause, as if he’d been discussing how to change locks on a stun gun, ending his narration by taking a long swig from his drink.

 

“You _think_ it’s a _challenge_.” Khan drawled silkily, his voice taking a low rumble. “You think I won’t kill you just because you hold a little bit of information?”

 

“I do not presume. God knows I’m not bright enough for that,” the other man muttered resignedly, “but you haven’t killed me yet so I suppose that bit is good.”

 

“I could gut you now. Crush your skull with my hands.”

 

Watson paused with his drink halfway to his mouth, his eyes widening only a fraction before gentling to acquiescence. “I’d say come at me anytime.”

 

“You refused to take your nap inside the comfort of the shuttle,” Khan decided to take another strategy. This one had the doctor smile with mirth, contrary to what he’d been fishing for formerly.

 

“I didn’t want my blood on a piece of metal scrap in case, you know…” John said lightly, trailing off with an annoying and resounding honesty, waving his hand at the air between the two of them. “It would’ve seemed improper not to return to the ground, at least.”

 

“Now I say you really tempt me,” Khan said with flourish, this time truly beguiled, his lips pulling back on his teeth to flash a grin that seemed like a threat.

 

“I try,” John replied dryly, a melancholic smile on his lips. “Go on and finish your drink. I’ll tell you more once we get in the shuttle. I suppose you have more questions?”

 

“Those things, the necromorphs, how did your humans make them? The transformation was marvelous. I’d have loved to study one of them.”

 

“You’d like it, wouldn’t you?” John had whispered it, had said it with unrestrained fondness in his voice, his eyes lowered onto the ember of their campfire. The doctor now seemed lost in his own recollections, his attention absorbed by a memory Khan still did not know about.

 

“Well, that was quite a distraction.”

 

“Hmm.”

 

“Extravagant, I’d say,” Khan drawled, finally succeeding to recapture the doctor’s attention, “It was overkill.”

 

“I had one shot.” John stammered, his eyes snapping back at Khan. “Starfleet has caught scent of the anomaly, of all that was secretly being researched and experimented in USG Ishimura. I had naturally neglected to report anything and they sent Uhura as a follow through. I had to be thorough.”

 

“You consigned the lot of them to a kind of massacre they had no hope of imagining or of surviving.”

 

Khan had the pleasure of witnessing how John’s face hardened, his jaws tensing and his eyes darkening. It was a pretty sight. He could almost see the shadows of the nightmares taking up residence at the forefront of the man’s consciousness. Khan would’ve watched it for longer but the doctor, it seemed, was also a master of his own woes.

 

John shook his head with a frown, burying that fleeting dark look that Khan thought himself fond of. “The necromorphs,” John scowled as he threw the empty can at the fire, “it was created by something we called the ‘Black Matter’. It was a relic we excavated from an undiscovered and unrated planet. Its presence and close contact with it alone would’ve caused the mutation. We haven’t dug that far into it yet before…”

 

Khan popped his can open and proceeded to devour his refreshment, sea green eyes fixed at the other man. Foreign relics. Of course. They were hazardous, unpredictable things. Humans of lower intellect never seem to learn never to play God with things they cannot possibly understand. Khan and his crew had long time ago discovered something with similar nature. They had their peeks and basic prodding but never more than were necessary. Khan and his crew had recognized what to avoid and treat as black holes and nebulas they ought to cover distance from. And the universe thought they were committing unnecessary genocide when all they did was quicken the process and save the space for a race that truly deserved to occupy a portion of the galaxy.

 

Khan eventually finished his drink at the same time that John’s voice drifted off as he finished retelling their encounters and discoveries of the necromorphs. Khan rather thought he has heard enough. John flicked his eyes at him, an eyebrow rising in half disapproval and half amusement as he seemed to have realized that Khan had shut him off and ignored him during the last part of his retelling. Khan watched as the doctor darted his tongue to lick at the lower lips. John eventually bristled before letting out a suffering sigh. It was really a lovely thing watching as the other man’s face change so quickly as it reflected whatever the human was thinking or feeling. Khan at least did not have difficulty deciphering the emotional status of the other man.

 

Without another word, John hauled himself back to his feet, picked up the bag and hefted it on his shoulder.

 

“I say we get going, then” he started casually. “Our next stop’s not really that far but we cannot possibly have a short transit time seeing to it as we’d be using a mere shuttle without the capacity to warp.”

 

Khan hummed lowly for his reply but had also gotten on his feet. John took it as an agreement, turned his back and headed towards the shuttle parked close by.

 

The attack happened when John was but a meter away from the non descript private shuttle. Khan had been trailing with a turtle’s pace, his steps light and deliberately quiet, matching the doctor’s. With the grace of a snake, he had abruptly launched himself with a mid-dash and leapt towards the other man, practically throwing his full weight at John’s back. His shoulder and chest hit the doctor’s spine squarely and he’d wrapped his strong arms at the other’s waist even before they landed on the ground. He quickly pulled back an arm and landed a punch somewhere on the other man’s flank. John groaned beneath him but just as speedily twisted on his side despite Khan’s grip and slithered an elbow savagely backwards and dug on Khan’s nape. The latter’s grip vise embrace did not loosen and John relentlessly continued with his attack, stabbing his elbow like a knife on whatever part of Khan he could reach. Eventually, with adrenaline enhanced strength, the doctor had managed to heave himself from the ground with his right hand and succeeded to savagely roll around and reverse their positions. Khan had found himself on his back with the thrashing man pressed heavily on his chest. Growling, Khan eventually released the doctor’s waist and just as swiftly pushed at him with both hands to throw him off. John landed on his side but Khan was already onto him, crouching just as lowly, pouncing and delivering a blow square on the doctor’s jaw. John grunted from the pain. Khan retracted his arm to repeat the assault but John has caught the fist with his hand before it could land another blow. John grabbed and held Khan’s enclosed fist and hauled himself off the ground slowly but guardedly. He glared wearily at Khan. It was when the two of them had finally gotten back on their feet, dominant hands interlocked with each other, that John let go of Khan’s fist, fending the offending body part away from him.

 

Khan lifted his chin and regarded John. The other man was measuring him back up, his breathing shallow and fast, his posture crouched low on his center of gravity to fend off an attack or to instigate one should he deem it appropriate. There wasn’t even the barest trace of confusion or accusation on the doctor’s face, only certain wariness in the face of a threat.

 

Khan pounced and engaged the doctor with another round of assault but the latter has met him half way this time around, their fists connecting on each other’s flesh with a thud before repeating the actions, hitting whatever part one could reach. In the end, it was still Khan who got the upper hand, being able to land swifter and, therefore, more blows. He’d succeeded to land a hit under the doctor’s jaw which disoriented the man, and upon the impact Khan quickly grabbed John’s skulls with both hands. It would’ve been easy then _. Just a little squeeze_. He now had the other man’s life literally on his hands.

 

John Watson was unusually unpredictable though, deliciously so. The doctor had executed an attack Khan for the life of him honestly did not expect of the man. John, even in their close proximity, had managed to pullback a leg and kneed at Khan’s groin.

 

Khan growled and staggered back, releasing the other man’s skull. He had his arms wound around his own stomach, his head bowed down towards the ground and his hair, now wild and rumpled from their tumble, fell back over his face. Above him, he could feel John huffing and heaving guzzles of air desperately. Khan grunted again and his shoulders shook. Eventually, he found it impossible to hold back the laughter that blossomed from somewhere on his gut, shaking at his innards and throat until finally it poured out of his mouth most generously. It was absurd. It was ridiculous. He laughed so loud, the timbres of his voice rumbling like a thunder. His hands on his stomach, he lifted his head as he laughed a genuine laugh and looked at John with eyes colored with mirth.

 

John stared at him dumbfounded, his own surprise at Khan’s reaction raw and undisguised. Khan laughed some more, stretching the length of his neck as if he delivered the last, dying bout of his laughter to the sky. He figured it was something that happened to him with astonishing rarity that the least he could do was to entertain it until it was totally purged from his system. The laughter eventually died on his lips, and then he was looking at John Watson with eyes of unadulterated hunger and heat, the joyous mirth now totally obliterated from those sea green orbs.

 

Khan rather thought he felt like the beast that he was. He wanted to smother. He wanted blood. He suddenly felt empty.

 

 

“That was indecent of you, don’t you surmise?”  Khan queried lightly, words wielded like a knife. “While that was crude and unrefined, that was also totally unnecessary. You see, I’m made different. That can’t serve as easily as a vulnerable little spot the way it does with other gene pools.” He allowed a small grin at the last sentence, his eyes looking meaning fully at John.

 

John looked confused then stricken for a moment before he swallowed back a dry laugh which resulted to something that disgustingly resembled a choke.

 

“Dear God, you must be the last person I’d want to hear lessons about indecency from,” he complained exasperatedly, “or one of the last two,” John amended quickly, his eyes softening. “But is it really so, _vulnerable little spot_?” 

 

Khan sniggered. “You surprisingly have a penchant for being crass. I didn’t know you have a filthy mouth, _John_.” Khan figured it was as good time as any to call the man by his name.

 

The good doctor’s face colored beautifully.

 

“I served in the army, been to war,” John babbled as means to explain,  darting that teasing little tongue out of his mouth to lick at his lips. “back in my timeline, I mean.”

 

“So that explains why you’re also quite adept with grappling, doctor.”

 

“So are we done with that bit?” John asked good-naturedly, without breaking stride. “Are we talking now or would we have more of that grappling?”

 

“You did say I could come at you anytime,” Khan drawled, shrugging his shoulders unthreateningly. 

 

John seemed to take that as an answer. He rolled his shoulders backwards and groaned as he finally relaxed to acknowledge the bruises. “So how did I do?”

 

“You live for the next 24 hours.” Khan answered promptly.

 

The doctor adjusted the bag on his shoulder and had the gall to once again turn his back on Khan as he started towards the shuttle. “That’s good isn’t it?” John asked over his shoulder, throwing Khan a puzzled look. “I know you could’ve killed me back then. I suppose I ought to be appreciating your holding back.”

 

The other man had by this point entered the shuttle and settled on the pilot’s chair that Khan did not dignify it with answer. John did not seem to mind in the least.

 

 “So, what now?” Khan asked yet again as John started to push and pull at the operating controls of the shuttle. He for now had to entertain the stubborn doctor’s incessant demand to share information he deemed vital to give only when it was necessary. He could still afford to humor it for now.

 

“Have you ever been to the _Citadel_?”

 

Interesting. Khan settled himself on the chair next to John’s. “I have only heard about it during the last, brief period of my awakening.”

 

“It’s a colossal deep-space station, one located at the junction of mass relays,” John explained his eyes brightening and his face contorting into an expression of admiration, “It’s really extraordinary, _Sh—Khan_ , quite extraordinary.” John turned so he could look Khan in the face, the boyish grin still on his lips that he looked so young and pleasant, “It’s where I got to know about you,” he finished softly.

 

Khan kept his silence, staring fixedly at the other man. While the enthusiasm that enveloped Watson was infectious that he found himself listening and entertaining the other man’s attention, he had his priorities at the present: getting back his crew and discovering his connection with this man. John recognized the expression on Khan’s face and back pedaled, darting his tongue at his lower lips before, straightening up,

 

“We could enter without arousing suspicion provided that Uhura hasn’t escaped from the USG Ishimura and alerted anyone yet.”

 

“We should’ve just ended her.”

 

“Now you’re just being indecent.”

 

  

~*~*~

**Author's Note:**

> .
> 
> Part 3: MELD-MERIZED
> 
> It was his face. The resemblance was so shockingly intimate and devoid of disparity that he started to disregard the impossibility and improbability of the unbidden thought that suddenly plagued his mind, that no matter how ludicrous and absurd it may sound, it could be the truth.
> 
> .


End file.
